Tumor radiation during the summer holidays – high-tech against cancer cells

Johann (12) from Wedemark (Lower Saxony) never loses courage. He has two goals: the tumor in his head should disappear and he finally wants to play football properly again. A large part of his summer vacation is therefore spent on radiation treatment.

BILD accompanied him into the radiation room. Johann is visiting the West German Proton Therapy Center in Essen (WPE). There is a “cyclotron”: It accelerates proton particles to two thirds the speed of light (almost 200,000 km/h). They destroy the tumor cells in Johann's head in a high-precision beam.

Impressive, state-of-the-art technology that thousands of patients, half of them small children, from all over the world come to Essen (North Rhine-Westphalia) to see every year. They are all fighting cancer and this giant machine helps them heal like no other. Read the whole gripping story with BILDplus!